PB&J Preschool Blog

Nature's Gift To Early Childhood

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:11:00 +0000

It's Saturday morning, my eyes are searching over the grassy, green field that sweeps our back field. I am thrown back by the beauty of nature and all that it has to offer. As we are deep into spring and headed for the dog days of summer, what are you doing in your classroom to promote such beauty and grace?

The early childhood classroom is much like the grassy field that envelops my eyes this morning. Or at least it should be. It should be open for possibilities, free to express sound, room for seeds to be sown and learning to be draped over each and every child just as the Laurel Oaks are canopied with new life.

Early childhood is the start of something beautiful. It's fresh and new, it's pliable, it's moldable, it's the chance to shape a world. However, in most cases it is not any of these things.

Take for instance, the habit of television in an early childhood classroom, the strict schedule of routines that really aren't child-initiated, but more teacher-directed for their purpose, the closed opportunities such as color this pre-drawn tree green because all trees are green, or the one-child-at-a-time table session. Oh this one is my favorite. You know, the one where each child has a tree ditto in front of them and they are told to not touch it, do not touch the paint, do not touch anything while the teacher holds the paint brush for each of them and paints inside the lines of the tree. After a long while, she proceeds to the next child and so on. Oh my goodness, I know I would have been the child to get up running from the classroom as soon as the door opened yelling, "Save me before my adult life is crushed by the closed opportunities that wait before me!".

Why is it that we can't get passed the controlled nature of teaching? Why is it that teachers can't let-it-go? Why are they so stuffy?

Many times it is out of shear laziness. Now I am being honest, it's my down-fall most days. I can't help with that problem, but sometimes it is out of a lack of knowledge. Many teachers in the early childhood field are given a quick set of trainings required by their state then thrown overboard into the classroom without a life preserver. Man overboard! That I can help with.

I want you to imagine a world with no limits, no boundaries, no one telling us NO. The joy of living each and everyday open to possibilities, the feeling of I'm safe, the urgency of learning, the excitement of a story. This should be your early childhood classroom. Each day a child should know that they will walk through your door and learn something new, feel safe and comforted, have anticipation to hear the story you're going to read, and know that if they are told "no" it's because of their safety and not because they can't paint today.

As the winds blows through the field and the sun peaks through with a new day, allow yourself to blow with the flow and take a peak at the something new a child will learn from you each and everyday. It's easy, so go ahead and release!

Until next time...go teach the children!
Priscilla

My 8 Bare Feet: You Can Now Subscribe By Email

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 19:31:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: You Can Now Subscribe By Email: "You can now subscribe by email to get the latest news, updates, and specials for My 8 Barefeet Barefoot Books business. At times I will of..."

Snoring Is Boring Unless You're My Friend Bear

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:50:00 +0000

Recently, I was asked to be a featured blogger for ABC and 123 A Learning Cooperative and I have to say that I was flattered. Now, for those of you that do this all the time, it's probably not that big of a deal to you, but for me...I was super excited! I was asked to share about reading, which is right up my path of teaching.

I love working with books in a preschool classroom. When I was an actual teacher in a preschool classroom, I used a book-of-the-month method and it just worked beautifully. My children learned all about the books I featured, the attributes of the books (front, back, title, author, illustrator, etc), and I want to believe they learned to have a love of books through this process.

One fall, I decided to do our book of the month featuring Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman. This is one of my favorite books of all time to read preschool children. There are so many learning opportunities in the book and as the series grew, so did my ideas.

First the book is a rhyming book and we know that phonological awareness and onset and rime is vital to the success of a child reading. If they can begin to put the symbols together to form words, decode and then change the rime to make more words, they will read.

"In a cave in the woods,

in his deep, dark lair,

through the long, cold winter,

sleeps a great brown bear."

I have always thought that I have a knack for making something out of nothing or something small. I challenge you to think about this paragraph and how it can be expanded into greater literacy knowledge.

Emergent Literacy Standards (Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Standards)

first thing we notice is that it rhymes: demonstrates beginning phonological awareness
the lair isn't just a lair, it's a deep, dark lair: uses descriptive words
the use of a synonym: cave is the same as lair

These are just a few of the literacy skills that can be implemented by using the book. As an early childhood teacher (any teacher for that matter) you should never just look at book and read it page by page without really picking the words of the page apart. You should always be thinking, "How can I use the words and pictures on this page to extend the learning potential?".

Page after page the repetitive nature of the book suggests that the bear snores on...this use enables the children to predict text and begin to coral read as a group. Pretty soon they can read the book in its entirety. The key is repetition. And the key to great repetition is creativity. So on to the fun stuff we go.

As I read this book time and time again in my class of three-year-olds, we started exploring the different elements happening. We figured out by the pages in the book that it was winter time. And from there it became a question of what type of animals sleep (hibernate) in the winter? How long do they hibernate? What are all of his friends doing up partying? Why is the rabbit called a hare?

These are inquisitive questions that little minds need to know. So you teach them and you explore with them and you ask their thoughts and opinions.

We worked hard through the week painting our cave or lair (a very expensive box) and we prepared for our bears to enter their deep sleep (I rhymed!).

As the week came to an end we had to put our bears asleep for the winter. Each of the children brought in a bear from home, we labeled them with their names (because all bears have names), we snapped a photo of a moment in time and we carefully put them down to sleep.

Three months later (no kidding), the bears came out of hibernation in the middle of night and they made a mess in our classroom (I can't believe that I didn't capture this moment with film, but I didn't!) with paint, play dough, blocks, there was even one sitting in the rocking chair doing circle time! The oohs and awes on their faces were too much to BEAR.

When you think about reading a book, don't just read the page, read the story that the page tells. Go beyond the words and bring the story to life as we did. Children learn by doing; their learning is three-dimensional. Don't bore them with flat words, flat pictures, and flat tone. Deep, dark lair should be DEEP, DARK LAIR. "Mouse squeaks, "Too damp, too dank, too dark."", should be "too damp, too dank, too dark" (itty, bitty voice).

Overall the book shares about friendship, consideration, and problem-solving. Bear goes from mad to sad to happy. Emotions are a big part of early childhood, use this to talk about feelings and how we can deal with those feelings even at a young age.

In the end, bear is awake and as spring roles around Bear Wants More. So off I go to plan another Bear adventure...

Below is a unit that I created when I facilitated a workshop about lesson planning. I used Bear Snores On as a part of the unit and inspiration for activities.
http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz249/family4jones/FromBlahandBoringtoLearningandSoaringslideshow_008.jpg

I hope that you enjoy reading about my Bear adventure. Although Bear Snores On is not part of my Barefoot Books, I hope that you will add it to your collection. There is a series of Bear books, so happy reading my friends.

Preschool Library Barefoot Additions

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:38:00 +0000

Looking to spruce up or add to your preschool library? What better way to do it, than to join my Barefoot Books team as an Ambassador.

When your preschool or school joins Barefoot Books, you can begin adding a beautiful collection of books to your library at a fraction of the cost. Here are a few perks to going Barefoot!

earn 20-40% commission on qualifying sales (personal orders and orders placed my customers whom you refer to Barefoot Books)
build your team and earn 2-8% of the qualifying sales volume of team members, three tiers down.
place a stock order and receive free shipping and 50% discount on orders of $500 or more
gain loyalty points which can be used as payment on future purchases of Barefoot Books products
receive free access to your own website marketplace, online marketing tools, Ambassador-only forums, training resources and more

There is no better time to join Barefoot Books. As a preschool or school, you can stock up with stock orders and pay only $250 for $500 in retail value and get free shipping. Plus, you can promote fundraisers for your school getting parents/grandparents to shop your marketplace. You earn commission and points! Take a stock order and display it for an in-house store for parents to browse and purchase.

Join my team and start your own successful opportunity of giving children a love of reading.

It's Almost Time to Go Barefoot!

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:58:00 +0000

As you probably have already discovered, I have went Barefoot! With summer coming around the corner, why not?

In the world of blogging, you never know when you are going to come across something that really peaks your curosity and I did so a few weeks ago. As I was scrolling through, reading about, and checking out other preschool blogs, I came across a button that looked sort of familiar, but I wasn't quite sure. So, of course I clicked on it!

Well, as I read along about the company, I was like "Hey, this is what I am looking for. Something to bring in some extra cash and I love children's books, why not?". I researched it a little more and over the Valentine moment of love, I signed up to become an Ambassador for Barefoot.

I just feel in love with the books. I couldn't help myself.

As an early childhood educator, you have to love children's books. And they can't be just any ole' book. They have to mean something, catch the visual eye, and frankly you should be able to compose a unit/lesson plan from one!

If you are an early childhood educator and are looking to add beautiful, meaningful books to your library, you are in the right place. You can join me in trying to promote literacy in early childhood classrooms and give each and every child a love of reading.

If you are interested in becoming an Ambassador or fundraising opportunities, contact me and I will be happy to answer any questions you have. If I don't have the exact answer, I have great team leadership that would love to get those questions answered as well. That's the great thing about this company, quality support and a team of great story tellers.

Now go read to your children and if no one is looking...do it in your bare feet...

PB&J Preschool Blog: Not Your Average Lunch Tray

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:29:00 +0000

PB&J Preschool Blog: Not Your Average Lunch Tray: "Last night my friend, sidekick, coworker facilitated a workshop on Totally Terrific Trays based on all learning domains. She has been gather..."

My 8 Bare Feet: Barefoot 4 Less Than 10

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:44:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: Barefoot 4 Less Than 10: "Here are just some of Barefoot Books for less than $10. These are deals! Not only are they vibrant, colorful books, but some also have ..."

My 8 Bare Feet: Today I'm Sharing the World

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:07:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: Today I'm Sharing the World: "Whole World is a beautiful book with CD for only $9.99. The music to this book is so uplifting and the children's voices are gorgeous. ..."

My 8 Bare Feet: Books I Love

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 01:14:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: Books I Love

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:28:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: Books I Love

My 8 Bare Feet: Free Shipping!

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:38:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: Free Shipping!

My 8 Bare Feet: My Bare Feet Get Wet

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:33:00 +0000

My 8 Bare Feet: My Bare Feet Get Wet: "Soon I will be experiencing the sell of the book, hopefully! I will soon take a journey with Bare Foot Books as an Abassador. I love these b..."

Kick Off Your Shoes and Shop With Free Shipping!

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 17:30:00 +0000

MaeBelle Living Memories: A Girl and Her Pottery

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:06:00 +0000

MaeBelle Living Memories: A Girl and Her Pottery: "My daughter has a knack for the natural life. One Sunday afternoon we went on a clay seeking journey down our road. I should have taken snap..."

Not Your Average Lunch Tray

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:34:00 +0000

Last night my friend, sidekick, coworker facilitated a workshop on Totally Terrific Trays based on all learning domains. She has been gathering and gathering supplies to make any one's tray totally terrific play! Keeping preschoolers interested and focused is a task for all of us, but making learning fun, interesting and fantastic will spark interest, curiosity, and inventiveness like nobody business!

Trays are wonderful because they not only allow for play, but they also teach self control, spacial awareness, and you can cover as many standards as your heart desire.

Organization is key and in the following photos, you will see just how simple it is to organize materials that makes tray play a sensation!

Setting these trays up for play takes skill, organization, and pre-planning. Don't think on Monday you're going pull materials and set these up. Tray play should be well planned and pre-planned, if possible weeks in advance. For those teachable moments where the children have inspired you, and there will be many, plan to gather the materials as quick as possible and then set those trays up as soon as possible to ensure you do not lose that moment of learning that has peeked their curiosity.

As Janie says, you are the facilitator and the children are the participates. Give them directions for the play, but do not show them what to do. Allow their imagination and approaches to learning rule the tray. They may find even more ways to play in their tray and they could be even better than your ideas! Children are curious by nature and some of the ways that they come up with play is awesome. That's the power of learning.

In these next photos you are going to see some play at work by big people.

Here she is matching the alphabet pasta with the card. Notice the spoons? Twelve for $1 at the Dollar Tree! Too cute.

Leaving the grid blank allows for creativity. They can also use markers to write on the laminated material incorporating writing skills into this math activity. Use a magic eraser to remove marker from laminated material; it's magic plus it promotes independence by the children.

Fine motor is so important for early childhood and using tongs and tweezers is a great way to develop those skills.

Leaf Man is one of our favorite books. The kids go crazy over this book! Find books that you can build units upon, take field trips with, and go beyond imagination with.

Magnetic letters and cookie sheets are essential in a preschool classroom. Cheap, but fully effective.

You can see just how easy it is to set tray play up in your classroom. Stay organized, be open to learning yourself, allow the children to navigate the trays and you will find yourself and your children open to so many possibilities.

Here's a thought...the week before ask your children what type of tray play they would like to have the following week. Chart their responses and get to work on THEIR ideas. Don't forget to recycle, recycle, recycle because as you can see you will need lots of storage. Don't throw away anything that can hold a pom-pom!

Thanks Janie for a wonderful night of learning, as always awesome job.

Professional Development

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:34:00 +0000

As I get ready to head down south to Orlando, Florida to the FLAEYC Conference, I want to share some thoughts about professional development.

This is a very important aspect to the job at hand and to the future that we are helping to create and form. I stress to you that you can only grow, nurture, and inspire if you grow, nurture, and inspire yourself. It is hard sometimes to get to the workshops held at your local coalition or other early childhood central agencies. It is expensive to attend state or national conferences. Seek external help from your local central agency, look for sponsorships that may be associated with the conference, and bunk up! These conferences are worth your time, so get some gals together and share a room.

Even though there are more convenient ways of earning your in-service hours or CEUs, like the Internet, please be aware that they may not always deliver the valuable hands-on experiences that you seek. Just as our kids learn through sensory, so do we. Try doing half and half and see if that works for you and meets your needs.

Stay inspired out there and until next time...go teach the children!

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Below are some of the pictures from a training that I facilitated titled, "From Blah and Boring to Learning and Soaring", how to set you classroom at a higher standard of learning. I enjoyed the training so much that I shared it at One Goal Summer Conference in Tampa, Florida this past summer.

As we look at lesson planning, we can't help but to also look at how our program is implementing these plans. How are we setting the stage for learning? Where are we getting our information from that causes us to write those words in those squares?

The trigger to all lesson planning should come from observations, assessments, curriculum needs, adaptations, program evaluations and much more that reaches far beyond the paper that we print on. This is a term that continues to rapidly become a part of early childhood vocabulary, intentional teaching.

I have been saying it for some time now; you should always have a purpose in everything that you do in your classroom as a teacher and through your program as a director. Why are you planning? How can you make adaptations and meet the needs of the children if you haven't did any observations? And, more so, how are you planning anything without making those observations?

To truly complete a lesson plan, you should first consider your children, where they are at the time you are planning, make decisions based upon observations and assessments that have been done recently, and have a reason for putting your pen to the paper.

I will soon be training a workshop titled "Finding the Intentional Teacher In You". I will be excited to share some of that information with you.

Look forward to spending more time with you all on my blog. If you have preschool friends, please invite them and post comments. I am always happy to answer questions.

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:54:00 +0000

I will explain more in depth what these pictures are...think about your preschool environment and how you are implementing your lesson plans in that environment. Can you tell me a theme, color, and letter for this environment?

It's Been Forever

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:49:00 +0000

I know that it has been a while since I have posted. Life gets hectic sometimes and gets in the way of us doing things that we enjoy-hobbies!

I will continue the lesson planning conversation soon. I am actually getting prepared to present it at One Goal Summer conference held in Tampa, Florida. I am very excited to be bringing my little bit of knowledge to the big city!

Stay tuned because I will also learn a lot of new information as I attend One Goal and will post some of my thoughts after my trip.

Until then...go and teach the children!

Slideshare

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:53:00 +0000

http://tinyurl.com/y9nr7xr

Preschool Lesson Plans Part 1

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:57:00 +0000

Preschool teachers are often misled about lesson planning, in turn, they become intimidated by them. I have seen it time and time again. Lesson planning in a preschool classroom can be a lot of fun for you and your children. Here are just a few ideas...

First, think of lesson planning as a story that will unfold Monday through Friday. Think about the beginning, the middle and the end. I love to start by webbing out ideas and going from last week or last month's observations of task activities that were observed. The power of observation is powerful itself and should be at the forefront of your lesson planning. We'll talk about observations and their importance another day, but know that you shouldn't complete a lesson plan without them.

Let's go back to the beginning. Why are you completing a lesson plan? Are you wanting to make your boss happy, your inspector happy, possibly a co-teacher? You should be planning for your children and yourself. A classroom without a plan is a problem waiting to happen. Have you ever hear the term enabler? By not planning, you are the enabler to complete chaos.

So how do you start? Going back to the webbing. I like to web because it starts with an idea and weaves itself into something bigger. Take for instance the winter theme. Suddenly the winter theme has turned into a whole week about hibernating animals and their environments. Webbing helps you to take an idea and narrow it down into a weekly unit. Then from there, you can web ideas about the animals, science experiments, environment changes, math, literacy, and so on.

The middle should contain your substance. The materials, the changes to the environment (did you know that your room should not look the same from week to week and that Friday should look totally different from Monday), and the presentation and deliverance of your unit to the children.

The end should be what your objective was at the beginning of the week. What did your children learn? Did you set out to accomplish what you wanted when you started this plan? Everything you do in your classroom should have an objective and an outcome. Will it work every time? No! That's the experiment in it all.

There is so much to say about lesson planning and so much more that I will be giving you that I will break this information down into parts. I will also be giving you some different tools to work with when we are finished with all parts of this conversation and in the end I hope that you learn something spectacular about lesson planning in preschool classroom.

Preschool Lesson Planning Coming Soon

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:34:00 +0000

Do you ever feel frustrated with lesson planning? Are you intimidated by them?

In the coming weeks I will be posting training information on how you can develop lesson plans that will send your classroom learning experiences through the roof. I want you to know that lesson planning does not have to be so hard and so time consuming and so expensive. I will show you how to create a unit on a shoe string budget and still get fantastic learning results for your children. Until then...

Some great pics from past trainings

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:11:00 +0000

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=42699&l=53522088aa&id=100000664307647

Let's Play Dough

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:54:00 +0000

I will begin to post some of the past trainings that I have done. These are the power point slide shows that accompanied the training. Please feel free to take a look at them and enjoy. Play dough can be such a powerful tool in the preschool classroom. I will post recipes soon.
http://apps.facebook.com/slideshare/slideshows/user/100000664307647

Lesson Plans for Preschool

pbjpreschool@yahoo.com (Priscilla~) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:02:00 +0000

Next month I will be facilitating a training that will focus on lesson planning in the preschool classroom. Why is it that we let them imtimidate us so? This workshop will change the way that we approach them and transfer those great ideas to paper.

I will focus on how our classrooms are like the butterfly and the transition that it takes before it is what it is, "one of God's most beautiful creatures".

Check back soon for my link between the two and what both of them have to do with lesson planning.